292 APPENDIX. 



" This and the preceding anecdote I call ' confirmation strong 

 as proof of holy writ ;' and, with all this before me, I cannot 

 but call querulous farmers in general an infatuated race, blind 

 alike to common sense and their own interests. 



" I should not have been thus prolix upon the subject — all 

 that I have said tending only further to establish a fact already 

 notorious — but that I am quite sick of the cry, 'Ware wheat !' 

 which is dinned into the ears of all who have not the good 

 fortune to hunt in a grazing county. I am too apt, upon these 

 occasions, to exclaim with the favourite poet of the most clas- 

 sical of your correspondents — 



' fortunati nimium, sua si bona norint, 

 Agricolse.' 



" I am, Sir_, your obedient servant, 



"A Sportsman." 



EXTRACT FROM A LETTER 



(Referred to at yage 24) 



Which was received, in 1832, from a gentleman who, under the 

 signature of "Thistle Whipper," has given abundant proof to the 

 readers of the " Sporting Magazine," of the value of that 

 opinion which I had sought, in confirmation of my own, as to 

 the best of hunting dogs : — 



" If, after forty years' experience, I may offer an opinion upon 

 the kind of hound you have selected, I should say, most 

 decidedly, you are right. I have hunted hare with every 

 description of hound, from the lap-dog beagle to the twenty- 

 six inch southern hound, and have no hesitation in saying, — 

 that no hound living will hunt lower scent than a foxhound, 

 if let alone." 



[Lord Tavistock, himself originally a master of harriers, 

 expressed himself to the same effect ; but this, from the veteran 

 to whom I allude, was still stronger ; considering that, at the 

 same time, he was endeavouring to procure beagles or southern 

 hounds, having, as he proceeds in the same letter to say, " had 

 riding enough, requiring less pace, and being desirous of gratify- 

 ing the ear as well as the eye."] 



